Saturday, April 29, 2017

Donald Trump and the Middle East: the First 100 Days

As Donald Trump reaches his first 100 days in office, the
verdict on his domestic accomplishments is in.Aside from a dramatic rise in the value of equity markets, a development
last seen in the 1980s, his accomplishments are largely limited to a set of Executive
Decrees.Two of the most important, his
attempt to bar immigration by Muslims to the US, and his effort to punish
sanctuary cities by depriving them of federal funds, have been halted by
federal judges.

Trump has caused a furor with his attempt to repeal the
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), severely curtail environmental regulations,
end federal funding for Planned Parenthood and women’s health services,
eliminate funding for a wide variety of critical services for small
communities, transfer huge amounts of wealth to the rich and avoid complying
with federal ethics laws.

Much less attention has been directed at the first 100 days
of Trump’s foreign policy.Has he been
more successful here or does he fall short along with his domestic policy?What has he accomplished in the Middle East,
the most unstable and volatile area of the world?

There are 3 categories which can be used to measure what
Trump has accomplished in the Middle East.First, what appointments has he made and what are the quality of those
appointments?

Second, what actions has he taken regarding the major
problems facing the region, such as terrorism, the Syrian civil war, the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute, Turkey’s move towards authoritarian rule, and the
Saudi-Houthi war in Yemen, just to name some of the most prominent issues?

Third, has Trump formulated the beginnings of a coherent
policy towards the MENA region?Has he
largely pursuing the foreign policy of his predecessor, Barack Obama, or has he
struck out in new directions? Or is
Trump’s policy unclear?

APPOINTMENTS

The record on appointments indicates mixed results on the
Middle East.There is no question that
replacing former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, currently under
criminal investigation for not reporting fees he received from the Russian
government, was a positive step.Flynn,
who is known for his caustic rhetoric and “shoot from the hip” policy style,
was a poor choice for NSA, especially regarding a complex region such as the
Middle East.

Lt. General H.R. McMaster appointment as Flynn’s replacement
was an excellent choice.Many of us
remember Lt. Colonel McMaster’s brilliant strategy during the Iraq insurgency
following the US invasion of 2003.He
was one of the few American military officers in senior positions who listened
to Iraqi officers and local officials and formulated his military strategy
building on their advice.(Compare him,
for example, to commander of US forces in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez).

The results McMaster achieved stood out as did those of
General David Petraeus who likewise learned that Iraqis knew their interests
and understood the military situation much better than Americans who had only
recently arrived in Iraq.

General James Mattis may not have evoked a lot of confidence
among civilians when he was first appointed Secretary of Defense given his
nickname “Mad Dog.” However, he has proved to be a competent military and
policy strategist.A veteran of the
Afghan and Iraq wars, he forced troops under his command to treat civilians
with respect, saying that, “Whenever you show anger or disgust toward
civilians, it's a victory for al-Qacida and other insurgents.”

Unfortunately, the list of top foreign policymakers, with
regard to competence in the Middle East and elsewhere, ends here.Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seems to be
a quick learned but has relatively no experience in the Middle East, except for
the interests of his former company, Exxon Mobil, of which he was CEO.Many analysts have questioned the ex to which
he actually has any significance influence in foreign policy making in the
Trump administration.

Perhaps the most troubling appointment is Trump’s
son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has been assigned a considerable number of
foreign policy portfolios, including the highly sensitive Israeli-Palestinian
dispute.At 36, Kushner has no
experience in domestic or foreign policy making but has been given a wide range
of portfolios, any one of which would challenge a seasoned policy-maker.

Kushner’s main claim to fame is that he is the wife of
Ivanka Trump.The important point here
is that Trump feels more comfortable surrounding himself with relatives, close
friends or former business associates, rather than with tried and true experts,
whether in domestic or foreign policy.This inclination is not only a problem regarding his policy-maker
choices, but the large number of policy-making and ambassadorial posts which
still haven’t been filled.Trump was
quick to fire all ambassadors immediately after taking office but has only had
a handful confirmed to date.

DECISION-MAKING TO DURING THE FIRST 1000 DAYS

Trump’s foreign policy decision-making can be divided into 2
categories - military and non-military. His decisions in both areas leave much
to be desired.Most prominent in the
mind of mass publics, whether domestic or foreign, was his decisions to bomb
Syria and Afghanistan.

The attack on the Shayrat Syrian air force base on April 7,
2017, was in retaliation for Bashar al-Asad’s use of chemical weapons in Khan
Sheikun in the northwestern province of Idlib which is largely controlled by
anti-government Islamist forces.The US attack
on the airbase, from which the jets took off to drop the chemical armed ordinance,
was widely praised, both in the US and abroad.

The other bombing was the use for the first time of the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal,
the 21,000lb GBU-43/B Massive Airblast Ordinance Bomb – the so-called “mother
of all bombs” – to purportedly destroy a warren of caves and tunnels in the
Nangahar mountains of Afghanistan.The
bomb, which shook houses miles away from the site and killed 92 Daish fighters, is clearly a powerful and awe-inspiring
weapon.

Despite the messages sent by these 2 attacks, the bombing of
a Syrian airbase and an underground base of fighters loyal to the so-called Islamic
State (Dacish) did little to change the political dynamics in either
country.Syrian warplanes were using the
airbase the day after the US bombed it, because the Tomahawk missiles do not
have the capacity to crater a runway.In
fact, photographs of the airbase indicated that only some old concrete hangers
had been destroyed. At $600,000 per
Tomahawk missile, one has to ask whether the cost was worth or whether another
site more damaging to the al-Asad regime should have been chosen.

In Afghanistan, US and Afghan troops were forbidden to
approach the bombed site to gather forensic evidence until 2 days after it
occurred.The reason seems clear – not
all of the Dacish fighters had not been killed and cleared from the
area.Indeed, fighting between Afghan
and Dacish fighters continued for days after the attack.

On April 21, a small group of Taliban fighters entered an
Afghan military base for new recruits, many of whom had never handled a rifle,
and killed and wounded 140 soldiers after Friday prayers.The worst attack on the Afghan military in 16
years led to the resignation of the Defense Minister and theArmy Chief-of-Staff.Despite the use of the MOAB, Afghanistan
seems nowhere near being secure.

In a third area of military policy, Trump has followed the
Obama administration’s lead and continued to support Saudi Arabia in its destructive
war in Yemen.Its struggle against
Houthi rebels, who are only loosely tied to Iran, is seen as a proxy war for control
of the Arabian Peninsula and the Arab/Persian Gulf.

However, the Trump administration has intensified US support
for the Saudi monarchy, in effect given it carte
blanche to engage in whatever military behavior it sees fit.The outcome has only been to bring Yemen to
the verge of a failed state which will play in to the hands of terrorist
groups, especially al-Qacida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Aside from military strikes, Trump has signaled his support
for authoritarianism in the MENA region.Unlike Pope Francis who criticized Egyptian president cAbd
al-Fattah al-Sisi for his authoritarian rule during an April 28th meeting
during his visit to Egypt, Trump’s meeting with al-Sisi earlier in the month
included only parasite for the Egyptian leader.

More recently, Trump was one of the fewworld leaders to praise President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan for passing a referendum which would greatly augment the president’s
power, eliminate the position of prime minister, give the Turkish president
much greater control over the Turkish parliament and judiciary and allow him to
remain in office until 2029.That the
referendum was characterized by irregularities and only passed by a small
percentage of eligible voters seem also to have been unimportant to Trump.

Trump calls Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to congratulate him on the Referendum victory

While many leaders criticized the referendum process, which
included approving without review at least 165,000 votes which had not been
certified, the US supported Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian political
system.That many intellectuals,
journalists, judges, school teachers, and professionals are in prison on
unspecified charges also seemed not to bother President Trump.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, Trump has demonstrated
the same incoherent policy which has characterized much of his domestic policy.On the one hand, he promised during the 2016
presidential campaign to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.However, there has been no talk of
implementing that change since he took office.

In one of the most bizarre appointments, Trump nominated his
former bankruptcy attorney, David Friedman, to become ambassador to Israel,
which will likely occur this June.Friedman was influential in having Republican Party support for a
two-state solution – Israel and Palestine – removed from the party
platform.He supports settlements on the
West Bank and, in effect, the seizure of Palestinian land.

At the same time, Trump has made noises that increased
Israeli settlement on the West Bank is “not helpful,” and will soon meet with
Palestine National Authority (PNA) President Mahmud Abbas.During the presidential campaign, Trump
boasted that he would bring the Israelis and Palestinians together and bring
about a solution to a problem which, to date, has been intractable.His designated envoy to seeking a settlement
between the 2 parties, Jared Kushner, does not seem to hold any fixed positions
on the dispute.

In Iraq, the Trump administration created a bitter taste by
including Iraq – supposedly one of our closest allies in the Middle East –
among the countries to which the Muslim ban would apply.It was only after more sane heads prevailed,
certainly including NSA H.R. McMaster, that Iraq was removed from
the list.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, which has engaged in the export of
its virulent and violent Wahhabi ideology, which is hostile to Shica,
Christians and Jews, and Sunni Muslims who don’t follow its creed, and
contributed to terrorist activity in myriad countries was left off the
list.Undoubtedly, this omission had
something to do with it status as a major oil producer, purchaser of US arms,
and perhaps even based on Trump family business interests.

MIDDLE EAST POLICY UNDER TRUMP

Despite considerable rhetoric and bluster, the Trump administration has not developed any new policy towards the Middle East. Much of what Trunmp and his advisers are poursuying constitutes a continuation of Obama policy. No oen would expoect, in any event, a new policy to emnerge within the frist 100 days of any American president's term.

However, the erratic nature of Trump's behavior in foreign policy, not just in the MENA region but elsewhere (think about the aircraft carrier fiasco in Korea, his reversal of China as a "currency manipulation," and NATO now becoming "relevant"), has undermined US credibility globally.

As "shock and awe" demonstration in Iraq, the use of overwhelming firepower will not take the US very far in the Middle East. Afghanistan is not closer to stability today than it was before the the dropping of the "mother of all bombs."

The key problem is that the Trumnp administration lacks the temperament to engage in the long-term, nuanced and detailed policy analysis which is required to bring about meaningful change in the Middle East. H.R. McMaster notwithstanding, the personnel surrounding Trump view the world through a binary lens - pro-US/anti-US. This form of thinking will only lead to greater, not less, instability in the region.

If Trump thinks that by supporting dictators, such as Erdoğan and al-Sisi, and supporting wars that lead to failed states, such as Saudi Arabia';s relentless bombing is causing in Yemen, he is in for a rude awakening. The Middle East is a highly complex region. Unless and until Trump recognizes that there are no simplistic solutions to the region's problems, he will find himself facing yet another disastrous policy failure to add to his domestic policy travails.

About Me

Eric Davis is Executive Director, MA Program in Political Science - Concentration in United Nations and Global Policy Studies, Professor of Political Science and the former director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. He is author of CHALLENGING COLONIALISM: BANK MISR AND EGYPTIAN INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1920-1941 (Princeton University Press, 1983; Institute for Arab Development, Beirut, 1986, and Dar al-Sharook, Cairo, 2009); STATECRAFT IN THE MIDDLE EAST: OIL, HISTORICAL MEMORY AND POPULAR CULTURE (University Presses of Florida, 1993); MEMORIES OF STATE: POLITICS, HISTORY AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY IN MODERN IRAQ (University of California Press, 2005; Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 2008; and the forthcoming, TAKING DEMOCRACY SERIOUSLY IN IRAQ (Cambridge University Press). Currently, he is writing a book on the Islamic State and the changing modalities of terrorism in the Middle East. He can be contacted at davis@polisci.rutgers.edu and @NewMidEast